Being a man, suffering from a ‘small bout’ of anything, instantly qualifies as one of the worst happenings in the history of the world and completely validates my need to moan incessantly about it.

So, today, I’ll begin with a warning:

Crossing me right now wouldn’t be the cleverest thing you’ve ever done.

I’m a very, very tired sausage.

I can’t remember how long it’s been since I last slept properly… A couple of days? A week?

Since time began?

I like to sleep.

It’s probably my favourite thing to do (that I can mention on a PG-rated blog).

When I’m asleep I don’t have to listen to, well, anything – especially that bird-monkey-dog-thing that lives in the trees behind my street and squawks into the early hours of the morning.

Don’t ask me what it is, because I don’t know.

But it sounds like nothing anyone has ever heard before.

For all I know, it could be a new, wondrous, being – sent here to rid the world of all suffering (kind of like Mother Teresa).

I don’t know.

But I DO know it’s keeping me awake.

So I am going to kill it.

(Just for the record – I didn’t kill Mother Teresa, although she did keep me up a few times.)

As much as I would love to blame the Mother Teresa-bird-monkey-dog-thing entirely for my new-found insomnia, I can’t.

You see, bird-monkey-dog-thing only exercises its vocal chords every now and again and, in all fairness to it, it waits until most sausages are in the land of sausage-nod before letting rip with its annoying half-squawk, half-bark at around 3am.

Basically, I don’t know why I can’t get to sleep and, to coin a phrase, it’s ‘doing my head in!’

So, I did some research on how to get to sleep and decided to try a few things.

A herbal ‘solution’ for sausages like me, who can’t sleep, but don’t want to take actual medication (or are too lazy to go to the doctors).

A ‘solution’? Great! I’m looking for a solution!

And, amazingly, with my first attempt, I found one!

But not for my insomnia…

No, no. The ‘solution’ I found was the solution to making my mouth taste like rabbit droppings.

I can only muster one theory as to how such a ‘solution’ came about:

Somewhere in the world a scientist inexplicably ate a piece of rabbit poo and then fell asleep within 24 hours (as you generally would anyway) and then decided it was the rabbit poo that made him fall asleep – and not the fact that, as a scientist, he has one of the dullest jobs in the world.

Either way, I was still awake…

Next, with my mouth tasting like the wrong end of Peter Rabbit, I decided to try a different herbal option:

1) Herbal remedies don’t work, make me angry, and can sometimes taste like a turd.

2) There are 106460540465406570 sheep.

3) I’m still awake.

So, unless you’ve got an elephant sedative for me, I suggest you get out before I start throwing beans.

(Not nice beans, either. I’m talking about those fat, evil-looking supermarket own-brand beans. You know, the ones that cost about 20p, have almost no sauce on them and aren’t even worthy of going on your toast.

Your toast looks down on these beans.

They want to be beans, they’re trying so hard to be beans… but they’re not beans, they’ll never be beans.

These are the beans that the other beans made fun of when they were baby-beans.

I’m not sure about you, but in my family, it’s compulsory to… Actually, no, it’s impossible to not… let out a cave-man-like moan at the top of your voice whilst making your mouth-hole wider than your face.

I call this face ‘the yawn face’ – here’s an example:

Obviously, I’m much cuter than the sloth in the video when I yawn.

At the end of it all, when I finally run out of juice and manage to get an hour-or-so shut-eye, I keep having the same dream.

I dream that one of my closest friends buys my house and then kicks me out of it, leaving me homeless. Then I wake up.

Most people assure me their voice is OK, though, meaning the problem lies in my ears.

I mean, it’s not actually lying in my ears.

I hope you understand I don’t have things lying in my ears!?

I just have a problem… with my ears.

By the way, when you were younger, did your parents ever tell you that if you didn’t wash your ears you’d get cauliflower ears?

My parents did.

Naturally, for a child, the thought of cauliflower growing out of my ears mortified me. And so my ears remained clean.

Needless to say, I spent most of my childhood being generally impressed at people’s ear hygiene – based on the fact that nobody had a vegetable sticking out the side of their head.

So to sum up so far:

-I can’t hear properly.

-I wash my ears.

-I was subjected to some questionable parenting techniques as a child.

Moving on.

It’s been pointed out that I don’t always understand what people are saying to me.

In fact, not only do I not understand what people are saying to me, half the time I swear people aren’t even speaking. It’s almost like the world has decided to turn the volume down just to play a mean prank on me and my ears.

We’ve all been in that awkward situation – when someone’s talking to you but you can’t hear a thing they’re saying, no matter how hard you stare at them.

(why do we squint when we’re trying to hear what someone’s saying? I’m pretty sure squinting does nothing for your earholes… And if you could squint your earholes you probably wouldn’t be able to hear as much, because your earholes would be smaller.)

Not a sausage.

So what do you do?

You basically have four options:

1. Just stare and hope the moment passes – this can get awkward (especially if they’ve actually asked you a question – try to avoid using this option during marriage proposals).

2. Let the other person know you didn’t hear them.

Be polite; say “excuse me, I didn’t quite catch that” or “sorry could you say that again?” Or, if you’re not feeling particularly polite, a sharp “WHAT” or “EH?” – Or any other grunting noise, accompanied by a wrinkling of the face, would usually do the trick.

3. The scowl and shake / The smile and nod.

As before, you still haven’t heard anything the other person has said, but now you’ve let them ramble on for so long that you can’t tell them you didn’t hear them.

No. That would be rude.

So, instead, you take a look at their face.

If they’re not smiling, or seem sad or generally displeased to be telling you… whatever it is they’re telling you – you frown, maybe make a “tut” sound, and shake your head to show that you share their disgust with, you know, whatever.

If they are smiling, or seem happy or generally pleased to be telling you… whatever it is they’re telling you – you give a half smile, maybe even a little chuckle, and nod your head in agreement (and then hope to god you haven’t just laughed at poor old Mrs Smith’s detailed account of how she lost her arms).

4. The stab in the dark.

Again, you don’t have a clue what the other person is talking about. But (you think) you’ve picked up on a few key words.

So you try to answer them – usually with a simple “yes” or “no”, but if you’re feeling confident you might decide to answer in more detail.

Beware, this is dangerous, especially if you haven’t heard the other person as well as you thought you had.

For example, a friend is asking you about the current financial crisis in the Eurozone, going into some detail about it (not that I’d understand that even if I could hear) and you take your ‘stab in the dark’ by saying…

“Monkeys.”

How much of a tit do you look now!?
Imagine being in my position; having to choose one of those options every day.

Stupid ears.

Amazingly, though, when it comes to any sound that could be classed as ‘morbidly annoying’ – I can hear perfectly.

Unlike Jesus (who knows better than to mess with Stroppy Sausage) he drives up the street every morning, dinnertime, afternoon and teatime, blowing some sort of trumpet and screaming at the top of his lungs:

“ANY OLD SCRAP IRRRRROOOOON!?”

Funnily enough, screaming and blowing a horn at me doesn’t make me want to give you my fridge.

AND, later, when you come back, I, unsurprisingly, won’t have been on a magical adventure to the land of scrap iron, therefore, will still have no scrap iron to give you.

But rest assured, if I do ever have any, I plan to make it into a trumpet…